Year 10 students raise £1460.90 for charity after National Cycling Trials

Ben Eley in Year 10 has ridden in two national ten mile time trial events on his trial bike, organised by the Road Time Trial Council. Ben is a member of Frome and District Wheelers. In September he competed in an under 18 event at Marlborough with a finish time of 25 minutes, 38 seconds, followed by an under 16 event at Ware in Hertfordshire, where he finished 14th in the UK, with a personal best time off 25minutes, 5 seconds.

Izzy Book in Year 10 teamed up with Ben to fund raise for ‘Mind’ - a charity supporting those suffering from, or caring for mental illness. They set out to raise £500 towards the charity which provides advice and support across England and Wales.

They completed the 100 mile ride on Saturday 26 September in 8 hours and 52 minutes raising an incredible amount of £812.50, for the charity. Ben and Izzy met with Principal, Mr Ball to discuss 'Mind', and ask the College to support it by doing a ‘Mufti day’ in October to go towards the charity.

So many generous people gave to the fundraising campaign with the two events, they totalled it up to an incredible £1460.90p!

Mr Ball congratulated them both and awarded commendation certificates for outstanding fundraising initiative. He presented them with the cheque for 'Mind' and said tha they set inspiring examples to everyone at the College.

Molly Myall from the charity said: “On behalf of Mind I would like to thank everyone who supported Izzy and Ben by donating money for their 100 mile bike ride and through the ‘Mufti’ day at school. They have been incredible fundraisers and are great ambassadors for other young people.

For those who don’t know ‘Mind’ very well we are the leading mental health charity for England and Wales. So by mental health we’re talking about everything from depression, stress, anxiety, bipolar disorder, psychosis, and schizophrenia. There are two main branches of what we do as a charity.

Firstly, we provide advice and support to empower anyone experiencing a mental health problem. When you're experiencing a mental health problem, supportive and reliable information can change your life. We help people to understand their condition and the choices available to them through:
• Our ‘Infoline’ which offers callers confidential help for the price of a local call.
• Our Legal Advice Service which provides information on mental health related law to the public, service users, family members/carers, mental health professionals and mental health advocates.
• Our award-winning publications and website, now certified by the Information Standard.

Last year our ‘Infoline’ took over 36,000 calls from people, who had nowhere else to turn, this number has doubled in two years. In many ways, it is incredible that more people are asking for help, but our resources are stretched thin and we were unable to answer almost as many calls. This is why fundraising events like this are so hugely important, with your support we could be there for even more people.

Secondly, we campaign to improve services, raise awareness and promote understanding. We believe everyone with a mental health problem should be able to access excellent care and services. We also believe you should be treated fairly, positively and with respect.

We campaign on a range of issues that could affect anybody with a mental health problem. This includes health services; legislation; protection of legal rights, and employment. This year we finished a year of campaigning in the lead up to the General Election. Thanks to our brilliant campaigners, 95% of MPs read our manifesto for better mental health, and in October 2014 a few weeks after we campaigned for better access to talking therapies, the Government announced that, for the first time ever, there will be waiting time standards for talking therapies. From April 2015, 75 per cent of people should get treatment within 6 weeks.

We can see change happening, we can see our services being needed more than ever, and we can see more people talking about mental health. But there’s a long way to go, at the moment, suicide is still the biggest killer of men under the age of 35, and teenage girls all over the world.

So once again I would like to reiterate how grateful we are to Izzy and Ben for their amazing fundraising efforts and hard work that has gone into raising this money. We will continue to work until everyone experiencing a mental health problem gets both support and respect, but we couldn’t do it without people like you.”